Frederick schafer



P. SGHAPER. RIDING HABIT.

(No Model.)

No. 521,478. Pate nted June 19, 1894.

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UNITED STATES PATENT. OFFICE.

FREDERICK SCHAFER, OF LONDON, ENGLAND.

RIDING-HABIT.

SPECIFICATION forming part Of Letters Patent NO. 521,478, dated June 19, 1894. Application filed $eptember 4, 1893- Serial No. 484,137. (No model.) Tatented in England March 9, 1892 No. 4,678.

To aZZ whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, FREDERICK SCHAFER, cutter, a subject of the Queen of Great Britain, residing at London, England, have invented new and useful Improvements in Riding-Habits, (for which I have obtained a patent in Great Britain, No. 4,67 8, bearing date March 9, 1892,) of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to riding-habits and is designed to provide improved means whereby, in case of the wearer being unseated or thrown from a horse, and the habit-skirt being caught upon the pommels of the saddle in such a manner as to suspend the wearer in a dangerous position, the said skirt will be disengaged from the wearer, so as to permit her to fall to the ground while the skirt is left hanging from the pommels of the saddle.

' To this end my invention partly consists in the combination, with a habit-skirt made with a burstable seam extending from the top to the bottom thereof and having its edgesv united in such a manner that they can be easily separated, of a locking fastener for securing the habit-skirt at the waist, a device for unlocking the said fastener, and a cord of any suitable material, one end of which cord is firmly secured to the pommel knee or piece of the riding-habit, and which cord is guided in suitable guide-pieces or rings, or in a channel or tunnel in the under side of the habit-skirt, to the waist-top, where it is attached to the said unlocking device in such a manner that, in case the rider is thrown or falls backward, the said fastening device will be unlocked by the pull exerted upon the cord, thus permitting the release or disengagement of the habit-skirt from the wearer."

In the accompanying drawings I have shown how my said invention may be conveniently and advantageously carried into practice.

Figure 1 is a view showing the outer side of the improved habit-skirt. Fig. 2 is a view of the under side thereof. Fig. 3 is a similar View to Fig. 1, showing my improved habitskirt adapted to be released from the rider when the latter falls to either side of the horse. Fig. 4 is a front elevation of one form of the improved fastener. Fig. 5 isa similar View, the front or outer plate of the socket Ct is the habit-skirt, which is open from d g to e, one of the adjacent edges being made to overlap the other, and the two edges being secured together by any Well-known and suitable fastenings which will yield should the habit hang on the pommels c of the saddle, and the waistband be unfastened as hereinafter described. The ends of the waistband at d are, in the skirt shown in Figs 1 and 2, secured by means of the fastener illustrated in Figs. 4: and 5. This fastener comprises a socket f which is secured to the inside of one end of the waist-band, and in which are pivoted at g, g hooks g, g acted upon by springs h, h. The said fastener also comprises a shouldered'piece or double hook j which is secured to the other end of the waist-band, and is adapted to be inserted in the socket f and to engage with the hooks g, g therein, as shown in Fig. 4. Between the said hooks g, g is arranged a sliding piece or unlocking device having inclined shoulders It which bear against corresponding inclined surfaces on the hooks g, g, so that, when the said slidingpiece or unlocking device is pulled outward, it will turn the hooks g, g about their pivots g, g and thus disengage them from the double hook j. To the outer extremity of this sliding piece It is attached ne end of a cord 1%, the other end of which is attached at m to the under side of the skirt near the right knee.

For securing together the edges of the skirt from d to 6,1 find it advantageous to use sockets attached to a strip of leather or similar material along one edge of the skirt and adapted to receive spring buttons attached to a simi; lar strip of leather or the like along the other edge of the skirt. are so arranged as to constitute a burstable seam, so that, when the waist-fastening is unlocked and the weight of the rider thrown upon the habit or skirt, the buttons will be These sockets and buttons easily withdrawn from the sockets and the rider will thus be released from the skirt. By the means above described, should the rider fall backward and to the left hand side of the horse and the skirt be caught by the pommels of the saddle, a pull will be exerted upon the cord m and the sliding piece It thereby moved ,so as to disengage the hooks g, g from the double hook j; the waist-band will thus be nnfastened, and the weight of the rider will then force open the skirt from d to 6, so that the rider will fall out of the skirt, leaving the latter hanging upon the pommels. The waist-band will not, however, become unfastened without the pulling outward of the sliding piece k, that is to say, the hookj cannot be disengaged from the hooks g by the simple pulling of the two ends or parts of the waist-band in opposite directions.

Instead of providing for the unfastening of the Waist-band when the rider falls backward and to theleft hand side of the horse, as above described,Isom etimes provide mean s whereby the said waist-band will be unfastened when the rider falls forward and to the right hand side of the horse. For this purpose I make the waist-band fastening with an unlocking device consisting of a piece or disk a, Figs. 6 and 7, which is inserted in the socket f between the spring hooks g, g, before the hook j is introduced between the same. This piece it is attached to one end of a cord 19, the other end of which is attached at p to the upper side of the skirt near the left knee. Then this cord is pulled in the direction indicated by the arrow, the piece it acting upon curved or inclined surfaces g on the hooks g, g, disengages these hooks from the book 7' and thus unfastens the waist-band so as to permit the rider to fall from the skirt should the latter catch on the pommels of the saddle.

In some instances I use,in the fastener, the two unlocking devices 70 and it connected to the cords m and p as shown in Figs. 3, 6 and 7. The said cords m and p are preferably passed through holes in the skirt and through spaces left between the material of the skirt and the lining of the same.

I find it advantageous to out or form the placket-hole in my improved riding-habit or skirt in the knee-cut thereof to give the garment a better appearance, and, as by my improved arrangement for fastening the skirt at the place where the side seam usually occurs, no fastenings can be seen, I produce a ridinghabit 0r skirt of elegant appearance and at the same time absolutely safe and free from the objections hitherto existing.

hat I claim is- In a riding-habit skirt, in combination, with a burstable seam extending from top to bottom thereof, a locking waistband-fastener, a device for unlocking the same and a cord connected at one end to the unlocking device and at the other end to one of the knee-pieces of the skirt, whereby, should the wearer be thrown or unseated from her horse, the unlocking device will be actuated by the pull upon the said cord so as to permit the opening of the fastener, substantially as, and for the purpose, above specified.

FREDERICK SCIIAFER.

Witnesses:

DAVID YOUNG, ALEXANDER WILLIAM ALLEN. 

